Found this cool soundtrack on Soundcloud!

I have a very dear friend who recently turned me on to an app call Calm.  I am making this ten minute daily mediation a part of my morning practice.  And I am so grateful to her for sharing this with me. This app, I have learned, is the number one app for mindfulness and mediation with it’s purpose to bring clarity, joy and peace to our daily life. I am learning there are truly life-changing benefits to having a meditation and mindfulness practice. Today we focused on “meraki.”

meraki [may-rah-kee]   is a word that modern Greeks often use to describe doing something with soul, creativity, or love — when you put “something of yourself” into what you’re doing, whatever it may be.  Meraki, a verb, or adverb, I guess, is derived from the Turkish “Merak” (Labor of love, to do something with pleasure), is applied to tasks, usually, creative or artistic tasks, but can be applied to any task at all.  It means to do something with passion, with absolute devotion, with undivided attention.  Meraki is to put your soul into something, to put a little bit of yourself into it, be it singing, dancing, or painting.

Meraki is often used to describe cooking or preparing a meal, but it can also mean arranging a room, choosing decorations, or setting an elegant table.  You do it with a good feeling, with a light heart and a smile. With all your heart. Perhaps we can translate it as “Whistle while you work…” No matter how difficult a task, it is done with all your effort, with enthusiasm, with eagerness,
with complete love; it is done with all your heart, again like a labor of love.  It can be the simplest of tasks, such as making a cup of coffee for your husband; you made it with love, with devotion, with meraki!  Someone who loves life, lives it to the hilt, does everything with zeal, someone who lives for  the moment, for the now, is often, in Greece referred to as a “Meraklis”.  Every single thing he/she does, day in, day out, is done with meraki.

Everything made with meraki tastes, sounds, looks, smells and feels a bit better. Your attention, your dedication, your love, you being present in that exact moment – that’s the only thing required to live with meraki. In our busy lives we tend to lose sight of that exact moment. We are continuously living in the past or in the future. Quick, fast-paced, stress, schedules, emails, social media – hours, days, weeks, months pass by in the blink of an eye.  Maybe by living more with meraki we can lessen the stress, say no to things that are not serving our best interest or the interest of those we love, learn to turn off the phone and turn up the music, choose to put down the burden and pick up the paintbrush.

I think God wants us to live this way.  We are all works in progress and I have learned that the path towards something is as important as reaching the destination itself, therefore I invite you to join me on this journey of meraki.

Go and make someone happy!
Do something with meraki!